Page 7 of His to Protect

Something inside me ignited, like a lit match had been thrown on a fire.

“Trina,” I snapped and then inhaled a breath, blowing it out slowly as she turned my way.

“I’ll cook you whatever you want,” I said, trying to soften my deep voice, even though inside I felt like boiling over. It was a damn burger. This stranger shouldn’t ignite something like this inside me. But damn it. She’d been beaten, that much was obvious.

And I was beginning to think she’d taken more than a physical beating if her fidgeting and uncertainty was any indication.

I quickly walked away from the stovetop, hoping like hell she’d stay where she was when I moved toward the office. I grabbed a spare barstool and carried it back, setting it down close to her, but trying to respect her personal space.

She jumped as the wood scraped on the cement floor and her hand fell from her curly blonde hair. Not platinum blonde and obviously fake like Mara’s was. Trina’s was darker, but with streaks of light that told me she didn’t just get her hair highlighted…she spent a large amount of money on it.

My curiosity about her was piqued.

“Have a seat,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “If you want a salad I can make that. But if you want a burger with extra cheese and onions, it’s honestly no big deal. I told you I’d cook you a meal and if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.”

My eyes dropped to her throat as she swallowed, and then my gaze zeroed in on one small mole she had right at that tender, fleshy area at the base of her throat. I pulled my gaze away from where I could see her pulse thumping.

“That’s very kind of you.” Her voice was raspy, still quiet. All her earlier confidence had dissipated into the air and, damn it, for some reason I wanted her to get it back.

I slid a menu onto the countertop near her before I walked to the refrigerator and took out everything for the burger she’d requested. While I was inside, I also threw together a salad because hell…maybe she really liked salads, too. Although I doubted it. Something told me she lived on vegetation because she thought she had to.

She was fairly tall and thin, and she didn’t need to lose weight.

When I got back to the work area, Trina was sitting on the stool, absentmindedly tapping her fingertips on the menu, while one of her feet bounced up and down on the lower rung of the stool. In the few seconds I watched her, I could tell that she was singing a song in her head before her lips began moving. A soft smile graced her lips before she noticed me and jerked her head up.

Her smile disappeared and I had to, again, fight the urge to scowl.

I set down a garden salad. “Here’s the salad if you want it. Help yourself.”

She stared at it and her top lip curled.

I looked away before she could see me smile.

I knew she hated salads.

—

“This is delicious.” Trina made another moaning sound that seemed to tumble from deep in her throat with every bite she took.

It was the kind of sound that could drive a man insane. That’s what it was doing to me, even though I was trying to fight it.

It wasn’t even purely sexual, although the way her full lips pressed together as she chewed made me think once or twice—or a dozen times in the span of a few minutes—about what her lips would look like pressed somewhere else.

But I was a guy, and that was a natural reaction to have with a beautiful, albeit injured, woman sitting in front of me, moaning over food I prepared just for her.

She hadn’t spoken since declaring my burger delicious. I tried to give her the space and quiet she clearly needed, but it wasn’t easy. A thousand and one questions raced through my mind as I turned off the grill and spent the last several minutes cleaning it all over again.

When the quiet, pleasured groans began, I went to the fridge to cool down before I decided to make her a sandwich for tomorrow. Having a feeling that the greasy burger with extra greasy onions was an indulgence she rarely enjoyed, I whipped up a grilled chicken Caesar wrap for her. It was probably nothing like the fancy food she usually ate, but I bet it was healthier. While she pretended not to watch my every movement, still keeping her gaze divided between my general area and where her dog was still lying in the doorway, I took her lunch for tomorrow into the office and slid a twenty-dollar bill inside, along with a note telling her to get her dog some food.

I brought it to her and tapped the closed Styrofoam lid. “Food for tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, staring at the small, white container.

As she took another bite of her burger, the questions in my mind began to overwhelm me and I turned to her, resting my ass against the counter behind me. I flipped the towel onto my shoulder and curled my fingertips around the countertop edge to try to look less intimidating.

“You been on the road long?” I asked, unable to keep the tightness out of my voice.

The burger froze an inch from her mouth as her eyes widened.

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